Fortune's Convenient Cinderella
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Makenna Lee
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HarlequinChapter One
A talented female voice singing ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” made Barrington “Bear” Fortune smile before he’d even unlocked his motel room door—with an actual metal key. The pretty maid he’d seen around the old motor lodge was standing on the foot of his bed, barefoot and on top of a pile of stripped-off sheets. She stretched to swipe her duster across the ceiling, and her knee-length white skirt swished around her slim legs as her hips swayed to the upbeat song.
Something warmed inside Bear’s chest. He squeezed the key in one hand and his laptop case with the other, all in an effort to resist pulling her into his arms just to see what kind of dance partner this alluring and mysterious woman would be.
The door swung closed with a thud, and as she spun to face him, her feet slipped out from under her. She landed on her butt, bounced off the mattress and right into a standing position at the foot of the bed.
He chuckled, surprising himself with the sound of his own laugh because he hadn’t heard it in months. “Wow. Impressive move.”
“Mr. Fortune, I am so sorry! I don’t usually stand on the bed, but there was a cobweb. Way up high.” She stepped into a pair of black ballerina flats and smoothed the front of her uniform, a white cotton dress that buttoned up the front. A turquoise apron with big pockets was tied around her slim waist.
“It’s fine. I was just jumping on the bed this morning,” he said with a straight face. A skill he’d perfected while making business deals around the world.
Her eyes widened even further at his joke, and she worked her mouth, but nothing came out.
“Kidding,” he said, then added, “Maybe.”
That made her smile, and it lit up her face. Long, dark eyelashes feathered around eyes the color of vibrant rainforest moss, and a lush mouth that had caught his attention the very first time he saw her coming out of a motel room was quivering with a smile she was holding back.
“Once again, I’m sorry, Mr. Fortune.”
“You don’t have to call me Mr. Fortune. Please, call me Bear.” He gave her one of his trademark grins that often made women giggle, or on occasion, give a kittenish purr of invitation. But this young woman only ducked her head.
“Bear. Got it. I’m Morgana. I’ll be done in here in a few minutes.” She scooped up the pile of sheets from the foot of the bed. “Or do you want me to come back later?”
“Now is fine. Take your time.” He was alone so often and usually liked it that way, but having her in his room was... He couldn’t put a finger on the feeling stirring inside him, but he wanted her around. The entertainment possibilities of having her in his room were intriguing. He put his laptop case on the bistro-sized table by the window. “And feel free to keep singing.”
A rosy blush spread across her high cheekbones. “I can’t believe you heard that.”
“And I enjoyed it.”
She tried to hide a smile as she stuffed the sheets into a canvas bag attached to her rolling cart. “This job can get a bit monotonous. Sometimes I have to entertain myself.”
“I can understand that.” He was enough of a lone wolf to be well acquainted with the art of entertaining oneself. He had years of practice and had taught himself to be okay with having no one else around.
Whether from desertion, death or deceit, each person who’d disappeared from his life had made him withdraw from emotional attachments a little more each time.
Tension gathered deep in his chest, just like it always did when he thought about his ex-wife, but he pushed it away in a well-practiced move. She and his former best friend had served him a large helping of harsh reality, proving being alone and keeping love out of the equation was the safest path.
Bear sat in one of two chairs that were molded out of yellow plastic with flecks of silver. Very retro and surprisingly comfortable. He pulled out his computer and opened a new oil lease contract he needed to read before tomorrow, but his mind kept wandering back to the pretty maid moving gracefully around his small motel room.
What was Morgana’s story? Why was this beautiful young woman working in a motel? Was she a loner like him, or was there something more to her story? His family had warned him that Morgana had been asking a lot of questions about the Fortune family, the mysterious Freya Fortune—who was staying in this same motel—and the silver mine collapse sixty something years ago that killed fifty miners. Fifty-one if the two mysterious notes about there being a fifty-first miner were to be believed.
His siblings and cousins had moved to Chatelaine at Freya Fortune’s request. Freya might be like a beloved step-granny to some of the Fortune family, but Bear felt like something was off about her. And he had no interest in her wish granting. His brother Camden’s girlfriend, who was a journalist, also suspected Freya was hiding something. Maybe even playing a cat and mouse game with the Fortune grandchildren of Edgar and Elias Fortune.
But there was no denying that Freya had been making their wishes and dreams come true with the money from her late husband’s will, and despite some ups and downs, all his siblings and cousins were happy and in love. It was all so confusing, especially with Morgana in the mix, but it was a riddle he planned to solve before leaving town.
With the alluring maid still in the room putting clean sheets on his bed, he couldn’t concentrate. All he could think about was wrinkling those sheets...with her. He gave up on getting any work done and closed his laptop.
“Where are you from?” he asked Morgana.
Her hand paused momentarily as she smoothed the ivory bedspread. “Tennessee.”
“Nashville?”
“No. A little farming community that no one has ever heard of.”
“A country girl. So what brought you all the way to Chatelaine, Texas?”
“Oh, I forgot to give you fresh towels.” She rushed into the bathroom with a stack of fluffy white towels from her cart.
Her evasive move made him even more curious. Morgana might be fond of asking questions, but her quick retreat into the bathroom suggested she didn’t like to answer them. Intriguing and just the kind of challenge he enjoyed getting to the bottom of. And speaking of bottoms, hers had moved so enticingly as she danced. Could Morgana be the distraction he’d been looking for or was she a test of his willpower? They did say keep your enemies closer. But was she really an enemy?
That’s exactly what he intended to find out.
He glanced around his room. At first, he’d been shocked by the pink tub, sink and old square tiles, but he kind of liked the old motor lodge with its dated but not worn-out furnishings, and thanks to this entertaining maid, it was always clean. Since he’d made millions off his oil wells and by inventing drilling equipment, he’d become so used to luxury that one might think he’d snub these simple surroundings. But something about this place felt authentic in a way he’d forgotten, proving to himself that he wasn’t completely jaded or spoiled by wealth.
Did he like a fine bottle of scotch, a suit tailored just for him and handmade Lucchese boots? Absolutely. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate the simpler things in life. And the Chatelaine Motel was the only lodging in town, so there was that. He’d had offers to stay with some of his family members, but he declined because he needed his orderly space and the quiet of being the only person in the room. However, he wasn’t going to complain about the occasional singing maid being tossed into the mix.
Morgana breezed back into the room. “I ended up in town because my car broke down while I was on a road trip,” she said as if there hadn’t been a long pause in their conversation. “I stayed here at the motel while I waited for it to get fixed, and the owner, Hal Appleby, offered me this job. So, I decided to stay in town for a while.” Her eyes darted to his for a moment. “What about you? What brought you to Chatelaine?”
“I came to see my brothers.”
“Camden and West Fortune?” she asked.
“Those are the ones.”
She fingered the small silver charm resting in the hollow of her throat. “West is the one who is back from the dead, right?”
“Yes.”
Believing West was dead not long after his ugly divorce had put him into a downward spiral. Bear had started spending all of his time around strangers who didn’t know anything about his past. He’d thrown himself into work and little else. Having his little brother back in his life was an unexpected gift that had begun to mend a small part of his damaged heart, but it would never be fully healed.
“I’m happy for your family,” she said. “I can understand why you’ve come for an extended visit.”
“I’m also working on a new business deal,” he confided to distract himself from his own thoughts. “Then I’ll be on my way to somewhere else far away.”
Morgana cut another quick glance his way then refocused on meticulously organizing tiny bottles of bath products on her cart. “So, has Freya asked you about your biggest wish like she did with all the others?”
“You know about that?”
“Small town,” she said by way of explanation. Rounding the bed, she fluffed a pillow, pulled something from one of her pockets and placed a foil-wrapped chocolate on top, but she still wouldn’t fully meet his gaze. “What wish will she be granting for you?”
He ground his back teeth. Nobody went to this much trouble to give away money without gaining something in return. He barely knew Freya Fortune, the cagey woman who was claiming to be their step-grandma, but he had a strong hunch she was up to something. “I’m not interested in Freya’s wish granting. Why are you asking me about it?”
“Just making conversation.” She hurriedly opened the motel room door. “I’ll get out of your way. Have a good afternoon.”
“You, too.”
She still wouldn’t meet his eyes as she backed out of the open doorway, and when the wheels of her cart got caught, she gave an extra tug to get them to bump over the threshold. A roll of toilet paper tumbled off and unfurled as it rolled across the room.
She mumbled something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like damning all toilet paper to hell, and he fought a laugh he figured she wouldn’t appreciate. Because the beautiful maid was trapped outside by her unwieldy cart, he snatched the roll up off the tan carpet.
“Think I’ll just keep this.”
“Excellent choice,” she said, as if complimenting his selection of wine with dinner.
His lips twitched, and his mood that had started to sour when she’d asked about Freya’s wish granting was once again lifting. This lovely young woman with her singing and dancing and unplanned humor might be up to something, but she was also good for his mood.
“See you around, dancing queen.”
